Q4 2022 Franco-Nevada Corp Earnings Call
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: This call is being recorded on March 16, 2023. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode.
Speaker 2: Following the presentation, we will conduct a Q&A session where you may ask a question through the phone line or the webcast. If you are joining by webcast, you may submit a written question for the Q&A session at any time during this call by typing your question in the Q&A section of the webcast platform.
Speaker 2: If you require immediate assistance during this call, please press star 0 at any time for the operator.
Speaker 2: I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Candida Hayden, Senior Analyst, Investor Relations. Let's go ahead.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the Americana Nevada's 2022 year-end results.
Speaker 3: Accompanying this call is a presentation which is available on our website at franco-nevada.com where you will also find our full financial results.
Speaker 3: The presentation is also available to view on the webcast.
Speaker 3: During our call this morning, Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada will provide introductory remarks followed by Sandy Brana, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide a brief review of our results.
Speaker 3: This will be followed by a Q&A period. Our full executive team is available to answer any questions.
Speaker 3: Participants may submit questions by telephone or via the webcast.
Speaker 3: We would like to remind participants that some of today's commentary may contain forward-looking information and we refer you to our detailed cautionary note on slide three of this presentation. I will now turn the call over to Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada. The Cooke knowledge Department 503–roid
Speaker 4: Thanks Candida and good morning.
Speaker 4: I'm pleased to report strong fourth quarter and annual results for 2022. Diversified assets outperformed driven by elevated energy prices in the year.
Speaker 4: The benefit of our top-line business was again apparent.
Speaker 4: While inflation impacted the margins of many operating companies, our EBITDA margins actually expanded slightly and our business generated record profits.
Speaker 4: It's good to see our efforts on ESG being well received. Most recently we were awarded a Sustainalytics Global Top 50 rating given to the top 50 companies in their ratings universe.
Speaker 4: This January , we announced our 16th consecutive annual dividend increase. The roughly 6% increase takes our quarterly dividend to US$0.34 per share.
Speaker 4: Many of our largest shareholders have held the stock since the IPO and they're now realizing a 12% yield in Canadian dollars or almost 9% in US dollars.
Speaker 4: The renegotiation of the Cobra Panama concession contract over the last few months and the brief production halt caused some sleepless nights. It was a relief, I'm sure for everyone, last week when First Quantum and the government reached agreement on a refreshed contract.
Speaker 4: We hope it moves swiftly through public consultation and parliamentary approval.
Speaker 4: Turning to Outlook.
Speaker 4: For 2023, our precious metal geodes and our diversified production are expected to be consistent with 2022.
Speaker 4: Although total GOs are expected to be lower as current energy prices are off from the highs of last year.
Speaker 4: We're looking forward to Cobra Panama reaching its expanded throughput capacity of 100 million tonne per annum by year end.
Speaker 4: and also to initial contributions from three new gold mines during the year. Maggino, Seguella and Solaris Norte.
Speaker 4: Our five-year outlook shows ongoing growth in the business.
Speaker 4: This organic growth comes from both mine expansions and new mines. The most significant new additions during the period are expected from Toca de Zinho.
Speaker 4: Bali's southeastern iron ore system, and Hard Rock in Ontario.
Speaker 4: We expect mine waste solutions will have reached its cap in 2024 and also a step down in the Candleria stream rate in 2027.
Speaker 4: Resource optionality continues to drive our business. Success at the drill bit will provide one of our biggest annual increases in reserves from our underlying assets. The biggest impacts are reserve increases at Detour Lake and Cascabel. We'll publish tributable royalty ounces.
Speaker 4: with our asset handbook in April . The global drive for electrification will be good for Franco Nevada's longer term outlook. Along with a deep portfolio of royalties on gold exploration properties, we have royalties on what are likely some of the next generation of copper and nickel mines.
Speaker 4: Our business development team is seeing good opportunities for precious metal financings, in particular, financing new gold mines. We expanded the scope of our financing package with the Toca de Zinho transaction with G-Mining Ventures last year and have seen good interest in similar structures.
Speaker 4: To wrap up, Franklin Nevada has no debt.
Speaker 4: 2.2 billion in available capital and in these uncertain markets couldn't be better positioned to continue its growth record. I'll now hand over the call to Sandy.
Thanks Paul, good morning everyone. As mentioned by Paul, Franklin Nevada ended 2022 with a strong fourth quarter resulting in record financial results for the full year.
The company saw strong underlying production from our diverse portfolio of assets during the quarter.
The majority of our mining assets performed in line with our expectations.
However, revenue and earnings were impacted by weaker precious metal commodity prices and timing of deliveries for certain assets.
The one area of the business that continues to deliver strong financial results with the energy assets.
As you turn to slide four, you can see how the company performed against the guidance that was issued for 2022.
The initial guidance provided by the company for the year was 680,000 to 740,000 total Jiu Sui.
Of this total we guided to 510,000 to 550,000 precious metal geos with the balance being from diversified assets.
The company ended the year with 729,960 total geos sold, which is at the high end of the guidance range.
However, we were at the lower end of the range for precious metals, with just over 510,000 geos sold.
This was due to lower geos than expected from Stillwater, Antimina and Cobra Panama, with a portion of the lower geos being related to price impact on conversion of non-gold commodities to geos.
The diversified assets had a strong year driven by higher energy prices. This resulted in coming in ahead of our expected guidance with 219,575 total diversified geos.
On slide five, we highlight the gold equivalent ounces sold to the last five quarters as well as the previous five years.
Overall, geos sold were relatively flat when compared to prior year, with Q4 2022 geo sold being 183,886, compared to 182,543 in fourth quarter last year.
All this precious metal geos were 129,642, down 6.6% from prior year.
For the quarter, the largest contributors to the lower precious metals were Cobrais Panama, Antipakai and Guadalupe.
At Cobray Panama, First Quantum had another strong quarter as it moves towards production of 100 million tons per year. However, for the quarter, due to timing of shipments, gold and silver deliveries and ounces sold were lower than expected for the company.
As we look to Q1 2023, we do expect a delay in precious metal deliveries from Colerae Panama due to the temporary production curtailment that did occur. We expect to have a stronger Q2.
Antipakai delivered less ounces than prior year but was in line with our expectations for the quarter. And the operator at Guadalupe mined less ounces on lands to which our stream applies resulting in lower geos delivered. Partially offsetting lower precious metal geos from these assets mentioned were Hemlow and Tazius where we had strong fourth quarters.
For diversified GOs, our valet royalty resulted in just over 4,000 GOs for the quarter. This was lower than prior year due to lower production and lower iron ore prices.
As you know, each quarter we make an estimate of what the royalty will be, with the actual amount being announced by Valet in late March and September each year. As a result, you will see adjustments to our accruals twice a year, in Q1 and Q3.
The strong fourth quarter closed out the year with 729,960 geos sold for 2022, the highest annual level thus far for Franco-Nevada.
Precious metal geos represented approximately 70% of total geos for the quarter and for the full year.
2022 saw continued volatility in commodity prices as you see on slide 6. Those precious metal prices were lower for the quarter and the year.
This did impact the conversion of metals to GEOS.
Energy prices were again strong in 2022, reaching multi-year highs. However, oil and especially natural gas prices have both retreated in the first part of 2023.
Slide 7 highlights our total revenue and adjusted EBITDA amounts for the 3 and 12 months ended December 31, 2022 and 2021.
As you can see from the bar charts, revenue in adjusted EBITDA has decreased slightly for Q4 2022 compared to prior year. The company reported $320.4 million in revenue in fourth quarter and $262.4 million in adjusted EBITDA. A margin of 81.9% was achieved. Fourth quarter continued the strong contribution from the energy assets as revenue increased from $62 million a year.
to $4.85 an MCF a year ago.
For the full year, the company recorded $1.31 billion in revenue and $1.1 billion in adjusted equity with both records for the company.
As you turn to slide eight, you'll see the key financial results for the company. Although GOs were slightly higher for the quarter, revenue was lower because of lower precious metal prices.
On the cost side, we did have a decrease in cost of sales as less stream ounces were delivered and sold compared to prior year. Cost of sales is dependent on which assets deliver stream ounces as not all fixed payments per stream ounce are equal.
Depletion decreased to 73.5 million versus 78.2 million a year ago. Depletion is based on actual mining geo sold in barrels of oil equivalent received on the energy side.
As we received less geodes from Antipakai, Cobrais, Panama and Valais, this impacted depletion as those assets are higher per ounce depletion assets.
For the full year 2022, adjusted net income was $697.6 million.
Slide 9 highlights the continued diversification of the portfolio. As shown, 70% of our 2022 revenue was generated by precious metals.
The geographic revenue profile has revenue being sourced 91% from the Americas, with Canada and the US being the largest.
And with respect to asset diversification, Cobra A. Panama was again our largest revenue generator at 17% of total revenue, followed by Candelaria and Antipakai. Cobra A. Panama is the only asset greater than 10% of revenue.
The last chart highlights our operator diversity. Our largest exposure to revenue being generated by any one operator is 17%, which is First Quantum who operates Cobra-Vanima.
Slide 10 illustrates the strength of our business model to generate high margins.
For 2022 the cash cost per geo, which is essentially cost of sales divided by gold equivalent ounces sold, is $242 per geo. This compares to $245 per geo in 2021. This amount will fluctuate depending on the mix of royalty versus stream geos, including mining and energy, but as you can see at current average gold prices the company generates significant margins.
besides cost to sales is our corporate administration cost.
The chart on slide 11 highlights our quarterly revenues and quarterly corporate administration and share-based comp expenses since our IPO. As you can see, revenues have grown significantly over the period shown, while corporate costs have remained fairly stable. For 2022, corporate administration, including share-based comp, was $32.6 million or less than 3% of revenue.
We continue to believe we can add to our portfolio and grow our business without adding significant overhead to the company.
We continue to believe we can add to our portfolio and grow our business without adding significant overhead to the company.
As you can see on slide 12, for 2023 we are guiding to lower total GO sold with the range being 640,000 to 700,000 GO sold.
Of this total, we are guiding to 490,000 to 530,000 precious metal geos for the year.
The balance would be geos from our diversified assets, of which we expect energy to account for about 70% for 2020. The overall main drivers for geos year over year are for precious metals. We do expect higher geos from Antipakai.
MWS, TASIEST and Muscle White where the NPI should be payable for the full year. At Cobre Panama we've guided for a range of 115,000 to 135,000 geos accounting for the recent production curtailment and timing of deliveries.
We expect first deliveries from new mines Magino, Seguella and Dolores Norte. We are anticipating that less mining will occur on our streamlands at Antimena and Candeleria and expect the Hemel MPI to be less in 2023. Our guidance has been calculated using 1800 dollar per ounce for gold.
$21 for silver, 900 platinum, 1500 palladium, and $120 per tonne iron ore.
Obviously, prices are volatile and as they change it will impact the conversion of non-gold commodities to geos.
On the energy side, we're using $80 per barrel WTI and $3 MCF natural gas. This provides a range of 105,000 to 125,000 GOs from our energy assets. As we look forward to 2027, we're proud of the built-in growth that the company already has in place.
Our outlook for 2027 is 760,000 to 820,000 geos sold. Of this range, precious metals will be 565,000 to 65,000 geos. Main contributors will be Cobra, Panama ramped up to 100 million tons per year. We will benefit from expansions at Stiltwater, Detour and Taziest.
We're expecting a number of new mines to be in production by 2027, TZ, Greenstone, Valentine Gold, Stiff Knight and Askey Creek.
Also, we do expect MacCready West and Sudbury to remain in production at 2022 levels until 2027.
The initial step down in geos at Candelaria will occur during this timeframe in 2027. Also, it should be noted that mine waste solutions will reach its cap at the end of 2024.
For diversified geos, we do expect an increase in geos from our valet royalty as attributable production should increase with planned expansions. And for the energy assets, we've assumed a slight increase in production over the next five years resulting in a marginal increase in geos.
Also, we've held energy prices flat at $80 a barrel WTI and $3 in MCF natural gas for the period.
Overall, when you look at the outlook for GeoSold, the company has over 18% built-in or granite growth to 2027 at budgeted commodity prices. This assumes that no additional assets are added to the portfolio.
Finally, slide 13 summarizes the financial resources available to the company when including our credit facility of $1 billion. Total available capital at December 31, 2022 is $2.2 billion. And with that I will pass it over to the operator and we're happy to take your questions.
Thank you. During this Q&A session, if you would like to ask a question, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. If you are joining on the webcast, please submit your question through the Q&A session.
Hey there, thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the recent culprit bottom on news.
Not surprised it all worked out, but it's still good to see it on paper here. Speaking of Cobra Panama and giving the importance of that asset to your franchise as a whole, can you provide some color on how much mind production has shifted backwards in time versus just changed for good? I see theater right now. I assume I'd give it all fast if this all happened.
I assume that there will be limited loss and inefficiencies.
that are encouraged should be somewhat limited just because of timing. I know there is no scientific answer to this, but just trying to gauge the longer term impact and also the timing part, given that you're still expecting 115 to 135,000 ounces with the attention of over stripes,
please. Thank you. Hi Heiko, how are you? Yeah, so at a high level obviously First Quantum has not adjusted their guidance for the year so even though the mine was shut down roughly for three weeks they think they could make it up. And during that period they did do some maintenance activities on on some of the lines. So from from our
it'll all be dependent on how the mine ramps up, but from my understanding it's back to normal operations.
Very good. Okay. And Paul, you were talking earlier on this call, and one of your quotes was, In these uncertain markets, you are still able to continue your growth.
The goal is at 1930 an ounce right now and we've discussed in the past that the national royalties stream is quite high, but you also play on a ballpark bigger than many of the other people.
You are nonetheless diversified into energy assets as well. Is it maybe fair to say that management has been spending more time lately on non-gold or even energy acquisitions?
No, the focus most recently has been on precious metal assets. There is a range of things that we're looking at, but by far the most of it is precious metal related.
By my comment, more of where I was going is we're providing capital to the mining industry, particularly the gold mining industry.
And what we've seen for the last number of years that we've been in a world awash with cash and cheap capital and that is drying up the cost of funds to many developers is higher than it was and particularly with cash.
were trying to say but I just want to clarify. And that was it on my end. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Erin Kyle of CIBC. Please go ahead. Thanks Paul and Sandeep and congratulations on a strong fourth quarter.
question here is just on your five year outlook. Starting with valet. Your your outlook points to increase production from the northern and southeastern system. Could you maybe provide comments on when you expect this out the southeastern system to start contributing? We have about mid 2024 in our model.
Hi there it's Ian speaking. So Volley, as Sandy indicated at the end of this quarter will provide an update typically as to when they expect the Southeastern system to begin contributing. As you know there's a threshold of production that needs to be met. The last time they provided an update was in September and they...
in terms of the deal environment. But debt financing remains difficult to access for junior miners and developers with rising interest rates. So could we maybe expect more deals in the future structured similar to the deal that you did with G Mining comprised of stream debt and equity components or are you focused primarily on stream? I'd seen it again. Happy to answer that.
That's not exclusively what we're looking at. We're looking at things across the spectrum. But we are hopeful that will be an avenue for growth.
Okay, great. Thank you. And then maybe my last question here is just to the extent that you can comment on it. What sort of, what type of size of deals are you seeing? Are they primarily in the $100 to $400 million range or are you seeing primarily royalty packages?
Or is it primarily streaming gills that you are seeing?
Sure, I guess a couple comments. First off, the pipeline is active. Yes, there are kind of more medium-sized deals and that is kind of sub $400,000, I would say. It was a mix of primary gold and by-product. I guess one trend is we're seeing more and more project finance.
the muscle weight MPI any idea what kind of number we're talking about there?
You know, it's paid in Canadian dollars. It could range, my guess at this stage or my estimate is, you know, five million Canadian to seven million Canadian based on a full year of production.
It's paid in Canadian dollars. It could range my guess at this stage or my estimate is 5 million Canadian to 7 million Canadian based on a full year of production. Okay, great.
And I assume your guidance for the five-year regarding Candelier does not include the potential for them to go underground. I assume when they do go underground, that would be captured under the streaming deal you have there. Or increase underground, I should say, increase the underground production. Yeah, Greg, it's Paul. So they don't yet have the increase in the underground in their mind...
John Tomassos, Private Investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you.
Could you explain which of your projects had bigger...
reserve and resource extensions.
Just looking down the list, Detour Lake.
and Bruce Jack, for example, had reserve gains or discoveries last year.
Also, your revenues rose 1% but your depreciation fell 4.5%.
Could that imply a 5% increase to your reserve life?
So, John , I'll take the first part here. The big changes for the year in reserves will be Detroit Lake.
Cascabel, where they moved M&I into the reserve category. The next on the list is the increase in reserves at Melartic with the underground.
And then the new assets that we have, tocotocinio and ossumugino. So those will be the biggest increases.
And then John , just on depletion, yes, revenue was higher, but that was driven off of higher energy prices essentially. Production was slightly higher on the energy side. But on the mining side, we did have lower production, which results in lower depletion. And the lower production was from high depletion assets, at Cobra, Panama.
The next question comes from Lawson Winder of Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead. You're welcome.
Thank you very much, operator, and good morning, and welcome to our team. Two questions for me. One, just in terms of operator concentration, obviously the issues of Cobra Panama highlighted the benefits of the first quantum, or sorry, Frank could have had a part of me, diversified asset base.
However, I mean, Cobra Panama remains a relatively large proportion of the asset base. Sandeep, I think you mentioned 17% of 23. And I think with net asset value, using that as a basis, it would be a bit higher. Does this experience increase FNVs?
desire to like potentially reduce the exposure to any individual operator and like what's your latest thinking in terms of this is our concentration risk with operators.
So, Lawson, we're trying to be a low-risk way for investors to invest in the gold sector and so obviously the more diversified the better.
But at the same time, we're trying to expose our investors to that resource optionality and the ability for assets to expand over time. And often those two things, they go in different directions. That's where our experience has been.
It's the big ore bodies that get better over time that are the most likely to be expanded and often that have the longest lives and the greatest long-term potential. So it's a reality of our business. You know, I have to say if there was another Cobra Panama that came along and we had the opportunity to invest in it, we would do it in an instant.
to expose ourselves to that growth. As our portfolio grows and we add more assets, so we dilute the individual influence of each of them.
It's the nature of the business that assets will go through these bumps in the road, but we think our business is well set up, we have no financial leverage, the nature of our investments is such that the impact of these events is fairly minimal. And so it's, if there are big assets that we can bring up.
But again, if they're great assets that come along, you've got to bring them on board when you have the chance.
If they're great assets that come along, you've got to bring them on board when you have the chance.
Thanks, that's very clear. And then just secondly on metal mix, so gold in 2022 was about 55% of the overall revenue mix. What is your thinking on where gold should be, how low it can go or how much higher you would want it to go? Thanks. Again our focus is on precious metal. We would love to do as much precious metal as we can.
roughly 30% diversified.
It's not the target, but if there were great assets that we needed to bring on board that were diversified and we're at that level, we're comfortable with that. Fantastic. Thanks very much, Paul.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please press star 1 at this time.
The next question comes from Tanya Jackiskooneck of Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Good morning everyone. Can you hear me?
Coming through clearly, Dania. Okay, great. Thank you for taking my questions. So the first one, maybe just to finish off with Sandeep, if I could. On the, just looking at the year, Sandeep, you mentioned Q1 is going to be weaker on Colbury, Panama because of the shipment.
coming through 20% of that annual production. Any other assets within the portfolio that are going to be weighted either way to, you know, first, second, third, that we should think about as we go through the year? You know, Cobra Epidema is probably the largest. And, typically I was,
shut down for about 11 days earlier in January because of some protests. It's up and running normal operations right now. So that's had a little bit of impact on production. Other than that, top of mind, I don't really think there's much more. On valet, we've always guided that production is usually...
less in the first six months of the year versus the second six months. It's usually like 45-55. So you can take that into consideration. But other than that, everything else is operating as expected.
Okay, thank you. That's Stillwater. Stillwater had an incident at Stillwater West, so that section of the mine is shut down for four weeks. So that will impact the royalty there a little bit for the Q1 as well.
I appreciate that and then just looking at your 2027 guidance and appreciate you know was a bit higher than our expectations but I really think it was down to two assets that we may differ on so I just wanted to review Stignite and the Rosemont Copper world.
Can you just give me an idea in your 2027 number, I mean, Stibnite would be about 8,000 GEOs, and I just wondered on the Rosemont Copper world, what you have there. We're a bit more conservative in that production starting later, so I just wondered what you have there for that asset.
Yeah, I'd have to check the detail, Tanya, if I can get back to you separately on that one. Okay, great. Thank you for that. And then just lastly on transactions, and thank you for the color on looking at...
both project development, both on precious metal and also on by-product credits from other producers. Just wanted to ask what your appetite is right now, given that 70, 30 precious metals to non-precious metals, what is your appetite for non-gold deals and what does lithium fit into?
your transaction, if at all. So the preference is precious metal and most of what we're active on is precious metal. Here, as I say, on the diversified side, it's more about, you know, are they great assets? You know, often we look at it and say, are there things that we can do in diversified assets that we can't do in gold, and so that's often.
You know, I had great old bodies or old bodies with very long lives. Those are the sort of things we're looking for. We have been spending time on lithium. There's a lot of capital that will get spent building lithium mines over the next.
five or ten years. I'm not expecting to get anything done in the short term, you know, with spot prices roughly four times higher than consensus and long-term prices. It's hard to get the bid and the ask to match at present. But if there's a great lithium deposit and we could get a deal done.
based on longer term prices where we can honestly believe there's more upside than downside, we'd be interested in doing something. So would it be fair to say then Paul that on the non-gold or non-precious metal side, it is not in energy, it would be in assets like would you increase further iron ore.
lithium and other electrification metals rather than the energy side? Yeah, on energy where, as you know, we've got it to...
20% is where we're comfortable on energy. We wouldn't look to acquire energy above that level. Obviously when prices run as they did last year then energy gives you a greater contribution and that's all upside, that's why you do it.
So at our current levels we're not looking to add more energy, you know, but there's no bright line in the sand. In due course, if it was a lower percentage of our portfolio, we may consider it again.
I appreciate that. Thank you so much and look forward to hearing from you stand deep on the Rosemont and Copper world.
appreciate that. Thank you so much and look forward to hearing from you stand deep on the Rosemont and Copper world. Thanks Tanya.
Thank you. There are no further questions on the phone lines. I will now turn the Q&A session over to Candida Hayden who will take questions from the webcast. Thank you Michelle. Our first question comes from Barry Dunaway from America First Investment Advisors.
Will the first Quantum Agreement on Cobra Panama lead to any change in terms on your contract with them?
It's Paul speaking. No, so the terms that have been negotiated and there's a draft agreement on, you know, principally relate to the taxation on First Quantum or MPSA, the entity that operates in country. So no direct impact on contract that we have.
for the higher cost that first quantum will incur at the operation.
So again, you know, similar comment before, there's no direct impact there. For us to do well over time in the asset, you're obviously hoping that the operators will spend capital and expand the asset over time, spend money exploring the asset. services and your spearheads or your
That obviously is impacted by the overall economics of the asset. So a higher tax burden can be a detriment. But I think that the tax rate that has been agreed...
Given the margins on the asset shouldn't be a disincentive, so I don't expect a longer-term impact.
Thank you Paul. There are no further questions from the webcast. This concludes our 2022 results conference call and webcast. We expect to release our first quarter 2023 results after market close on May 2 with the conference call held the following morning. Thank you for your interest in Franco-Nevada.